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Forever

 When you listen to enough Country music I guess it's natural that the songs begin to describe your life. Now in my mind I think of myself as in my 20's a 70's outlaw country fan. Ah the good old days Willie, Waylon, and the Boys will ride forever - but the modern stuff has more than a few artists worth a listen. Luke Combs is one with his song " Forever ". His song being something of a bookend thematically with Carly Pearce's "Didn't Do". My life is changing and confusing these days but damn the music's good. Well, my CDs are packed up at the moment so I'm relying on YouTube. Thus the music is good with lots of commercial interruptions!

 When I owned apartments I was often faced with the decision of of 'how good of a repair' did I want to pay for. Quite often I erred on the side of fixing it like I'd 'own it forever'. That wasn't always the perfect choice but it does leave you feeling good about who you are. I carried this philosophy with notable exceptions to other areas of my life. It was certainly useful in gardening. 

 My raised beds in the garden started as temporary solutions with what I could afford and had on hand. Yet, when I had the opportunity to choose, I chose to build with stone, it lasts! When I planted my first rows of food they were annuals with seeds others had shared with me. A few years in I found myself planting fruit trees and perennials. In some ways that temporary to permanent planting of roots is illogical. You waste a lot of time by not starting with the slowest to grow. Wasted in the sense that a garden is some sort of end result, a destination, not a way to travel. The waste of not focusing on forever is doubly illogical when I reflect that every garden I have ever left has been torn up by the next to own the property. Buddhists see impermanence as a fundamental element of life and denying it as the cause of suffering. Yes, but, there is something soul satisfying in building something for the ages, IF you can also remember that what you are building is merely a sand castle. The tide will come and tomorrow you can build again - forever. 

 Deb and I have decided to sell our house of these last 20 plus years. We're leaving our Colorado, 40 years each of the mountains, Columbines, Cherry Creek and the Platte. We're selling all those cheap patches and forever fixes. Selling the garden that has fed us so well all these years and leaving Colorado our family and friends. Yesterday I packed my seeds in a small box. I'm crying like this mean something as I write this, damn that impermanence thing! Ah it's probably just the damned song has changed to a sad one. Stupid YouTube!

 Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance day and I'd like to offer two disparate  thoughts. First, after each of the all too many mass shootings one of the questions always raised is "How did they get the gun?". How did a child, how did a clearly deranged person... who gave the baby a gun! Perhaps, each year we can use the day to ask the question who gave the politician a gun. Has history not forever shown that politicians should not be given a license to carry. No I don't have a solution to how to unwind 'their nukes but not mine' or how to deal with evil and aggression. I'm only asking we individually think hard - look into the possible future each time we are asked to give the politician a gun.

 The second thought is from my reading Sam Zell's book 'Am I being Too Subtle'. It is beyond hackneyed to use the phrase 'the last train out'. Yet, Mr Zell's parents did exactly that in the least hackneyed way possible. They took the last train out of Poland as Germany invaded. I don't know a good source to read all the details but it is worth whatever time you need to spend to read as much about it as you possible can. It is a tale beyond anything a Hollywood script writer could spin. It has a Japanese diplomat, descendant of a Samurai, disobeying orders and saving both Mr Zell's parents and approximately 6000 other Jews fleeing. It has his Dad pleading with family friends and neighbors to listen to what he sees coming and leave. The train itself is routed and rerouted around the blitzkrieg and that is just the beginning of their 2 year journey. Imagine the moments, the choices, the fear and tears the very real human drama. Evolution is pragmatic, Fight and flight are hard-wired in as only the survivors pass on their genes. Sam Zell was born in 1941 in Chicago.

 Deb and I won't be traveling through a war so surely we can handle a little change. It is beyond hackneyed to break up with a lover like Colorado by saying "it's not you but me". Yet no matter the motivation for moving no one wants to hear the bitter explanations of "it's not you but - but really it's you!" Thus I'll leave on the song by Carly Pearce and write again not from Eden just the next place I can put a root in the ground. Be safe. Doug A.

 

 

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